Haathi - Dancing Elephant

Mixed-media collage 'Haathi - Dancing Elephant' by Chila Kumari Burman, 2017, showing an elephant with extensive hand embellishment facing left, extending beyond its gold background. The frame embellished with mirror pieces.

Made of gold paper, Chinese crystals, embroidered fabric shapes, gold thread, stickers, velvet, glitter, rhinestones.

Elephants are of great cultural significance in India, and have long been the focus of state conservation and environmental policy. Nature reserves protecting species including elephants were established by Emperor Ashoka in around 250 BCE, and efforts put in place by the Mughal Emperor Akbar are credited with ensuring the survival of Indian elephants today. Here Burman captures this rich cultural heritage in exuberant mixed media. She was particularly influenced by the Gajasutra, an elephantology text preserved in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, which mixes mythology with factual description. According to the text, elephants were originally multi-coloured with wings, punished with their current grey, earth-bound form for antisocial behaviour.

One of 29 works produced by Burman as a commission to accompany the Science Museum’s ‘Illuminating India’ season in 2017-18. Five works in the series feature elephants.

The works respond to objects and narratives in the history of science in India particularly to the exhibition ‘5000 Years of Science and Innovation’, as well as to the wider religious and cultural history of the sub-continent. This was Burman's first significant engagement with the history of science and medicine, with the works ranging across print, collage, photography and mixed-media, including experiments with iPad technology.